


I Appear Missing

by volatilehearted (anomalagous)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, depressed thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 17:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4358621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalagous/pseuds/volatilehearted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had never really considered he would spend his senior year as a sin-eater. It had never crossed his mind, in all those times when he was small and looking hopefully towards the future as if it had been made of stars, that he'd spend that future, once he got there, swallowing the pain of others like Charybdis. He wasn't sure when he'd stopped seeing stars in the future; Scott only knew that he had, that before him was nothing but a blank void. All the stars in his life were behind him.</p><p>He'd given up on looking back at the days before the Bite. He couldn't afford that kind of thinking, to indulge in the wanting, so visceral he could feel it crawling in his gut, for a time in which nothing was expected of him except moderately acceptable grades and maybe enough mindfulness to take dinner to his mother on night shift every once in a while. If he touched it at all it would overwhelm him and drag him under. He'd thought more than once that it might not be so bad to surrender to the undertow, but that notion always came up hard against the bars of the same cage that held all the rest of his thoughts. He couldn't do that to the others.</p><p>What he wanted was immaterial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Appear Missing

He had never really considered he would spend his senior year as a sin-eater. It had never crossed his mind, in all those times when he was small and looking hopefully towards the future as if it had been made of stars, that he'd _spend_ that future, once he got there, swallowing the pain of others like Charybdis. He wasn't sure when he'd stopped seeing stars in the future; Scott only knew that he had, that before him was nothing but a blank void. All the stars in his life were behind him.

He'd given up on looking back at the days before the Bite. He couldn't afford that kind of thinking, to indulge in the _wanting,_ so visceral he could feel it crawling in his gut, for a time in which nothing was expected of him except moderately acceptable grades and maybe enough mindfulness to take dinner to his mother on night shift every once in a while. If he touched it at all it would overwhelm him and drag him under. He'd thought more than once that it might not be so bad to surrender to the undertow, but that notion always came up hard against the bars of the same cage that held all the rest of his thoughts. He couldn't do that to the others.

What he wanted was immaterial.

After all, he was the one with the morphine in his touch, it was _his_ flesh that had somehow become the panacea the rest of the aching, bleeding world reached for. They called to him, while he was asleep, while he was awake, and Scott couldn't deny them. They hurt. When they hurt, _he_ hurt. There was no way to avoid that, but at the very least, Scott could make sure that _he_ was the only one hurting. It was better than the alternative. He could take it. He had to be able to take it.

He was a True Alpha. He had to be able to take _everything_.

So he did. He took it and he _took_ it and he **took** it, the doubts of his friends, the insecurities of his pack, the uncertainty of his family, the pain of strangers. He let them fill in the empty holes with long bandage strips of himself and smiled the whole time, even as his veins ran black. He didn't have to pretend it didn't matter, because it _didn't_ , not in comparison to the alternative. All he really had to pretend was that it ever went away, that he could break it down and consume it and transmute it instead of letting it sit like a growing bezoar in his belly.

Sometimes he wondered if this was just the way the story for all wolves ended, after a while, with stones stitched into their bellies.

Sometimes he found himself walking beside the road, late at night, without really remembering having left his house, and wondered if the wildness dying inside of him was trying to escape.

He kept it on a leash. He chained it back down to the thought of all of the people in Beacon Hills who were relying on him, to the idea that the sky was falling and his shoulders were the only ones meant to hold it back up.

 _His_ beast was a beast of burden.

He tried to avoid telling his friends of his fears or even of the episodes along the road, refusing to let his beast _be_ the burden. Sometimes, Scott thought maybe Stiles had seen through him, something surfacing in a knife-sharp gaze thrown in his direction during the moments most able to be cut by it. It never lasted, always swallowed by the sorts of pains Scott _couldn't_ take from his best friend, no matter how much he tried. (And he had, _oh_ , had he, but that grief and that guilt weren't physical things, they had no root in the body and so Scott couldn't find them to dig them out.)

Maybe it was better this way. Stiles was good with some secrets but he was so, so bad with others, and the last thing any of them needed was for Scott's fault lines to be painted in luminescent stripes and wrapped with caution tape. It was to everyone's benefit—except Scott's, maybe, but that was the sort of thing that went without saying at this point—that he'd finally found a place where he _could_ hide things from Stiles. If Stiles sensed the secret compartment in his heart and begrudged its existence, _well_ , Scott could excuse that knowing that Stiles was made safer and better for it. The risk was worth the reward.

The first time he had tried to do a round at the hospital, his mother had told him, begged him, pleaded with him not to. He hadn't listened, and now she seemed to rely on him, greeting him at the door once a week and guiding him with one hand on his shoulder to the patients that most needed his attention. He took the pain of late-stage cancer, of a nearly severed hand, of burns that ran from scalp to sternum and he learned very quickly that _taking_ something didn't always translate to _giving_ something. They didn't always get _better_. Sometimes the freedom from pain was just a freedom to die peacefully.

One of the family members stopped him in the hallway, once to ask him if he was an angel of mercy or an angel of death. Scott just smiled sadly at her, told her _neither_ , and rushed off to the men's room to be violently ill.

Tonight hadn't been that bad. He only felt like he was dragging the weight of _one_ town behind him when he forced himself up the stairs of his house to his bedroom.

Stiles was already standing at the foot of his bed when Scott got there, looking unsettled. He kept fussing with his hands, opening them and spreading them down near his hips like he was going to start to say something but then thought better of it at the last moment. He didn't really need to say anything at all. Neither of them did. Scott nodded and neither of them bothered to get undressed or even below the covers before they curled up on the bed together like they had when they were children. Stiles let Scott pull his back up against Scott's front and Scott let Stiles take what he needed.

He slept. He did not dream. That was a blessing.

Stiles was already gone when Scott woke up, which wasn't much of a surprise. Scott forced himself back up onto his feet, rolling stiffness out of his shoulders, and stood under the shower spray until he estimated his body was clean.

There were pancakes waiting for him in a shortstack on the table by the time he got downstairs. They were cold, lopsided and dotted with overly-mushy raspberries, which meant that Stiles had probably been the one to make them, hours ago. Scott wasn't sure if they were supposed to be gratitude or apology, but he ate them anyway.

He found a note under the plate, also Stiles' doing, with a simple message scrawled on it: _You're taking a paid sick day today. I better not find you at that clinic._ Underneath that, slightly more cramped, was written, _P.S.: Don't you dare use this to clean the house either. I'm serious._ _Day off_ _._

That made him frown, but when Scott called Deaton to ask what was going on and to reassure the veterinarian that he could still come in, Deaton simply insisted in his implacable way that he had everything covered and that Scott would be paid for his scheduled shift today and not to worry. The answer was more suspicious than it wasn't, but Scott had learned months ago that he'd get nothing out of Deaton by pushing, so he gave up.

Instead, devoid of any better ideas, Scott just went back upstairs and back to bed.

He didn't remember waking again until the sound of Stiles' voice filled in the empty spaces in his room, slightly judgmental. “Scott. Did you seriously sleep all day?”

Blurrily, Scott rolled over and started to prop himself up by his headboard, blinking until he could bring Stiles' figure into focus. The bedroom door was closed behind him and Stiles stood at the foot of the bed, dark plaid of shirt buttoned up and its sleeves rolled past his elbows. He had both hands on his hips and he smelled not-entirely-faintly of antiseptic, flea powder, and about a dozen different animals. Scott frowned. “...Stiles, were you at the clinic?”

One of Stiles' shoulders shrugged, but he didn't move his hands nor particularly looked shamed as he admitted, “Yeah, well, Deaton's star pupil called out sick today, so it turns out he needed an extra pair of hands and I was available. With hands.”

Something shifted painfully in Scott's chest, tightening around his tone as he spoke, “Stiles--”

“So help me, if you start in with the 'you didn't have to do that' and feeling bad for me because I did _one shift_ of menial vet-tech labor, I will _actually_ smack you.”

Scott took the scolding on the chin because he had absolutely been on the verge of all of those things. Instead of formulating a retort, he bent his head and looked down at his hands, rubbing his fingertips together and feeling unsettled, like the stone in his stomach was shifting.

Stiles was shifting, too. He moved from the end of the bed to make space for himself on the edge of it, instead, pushing Scott's legs out of the way with his butt until he could sit comfortably. “Besides. We've got more important things to talk about right now.”

Of course. There was always something more important. Scott tried not to let his face screw up with unhappiness as he glanced up at Stiles' face. “Like what?”

“Like you.”

It wasn't the answer Scott was expecting. He could feel the surprise flicker over his face before it was replaced with his more usual state of worry. Pulling both legs up to cross them beneath the sheets, Scott leaned forward faintly, tucking his fingers beneath his lower shin. “What about me?”

“I can see you doing it, Scotty.” Stiles started to explain, voice lower and rougher than usual, hushed like he was worried that something might break if he said the words any more loudly. “I know you don't think anyone does, I hink you think you're hiding it so well, but dude. You haven't been able to hide anything from me since we were eight. That's like _ten years_ of knowing all your clockwork, dude. I know what you're doing, and I was trying to just let you handle it because you're a big boy and I'm supposed to be working on not everything going exactly according to my plans, but the fact that you just slept the whole day away and didn't even blink at that means we've got a way bigger problem than I anticipated, so I'm stepping in.”

Even though he knew it wasn't going to work, Scott shook his head, trying to offer Stiles a fabricated smile. “I don't know what you're talking about, though?”

Stiles was unimpressed. “Honestly, I'm a little insulted that you think you can hide this from me. I can see how you try to carry everybody's pain, how you'll take it even from strangers, and don't you try to tell me it isn't a big deal because I'll remind you, I know _first hand_ how long you hold that pain inside you and what it feels like. I know better maybe than anyone else what that feels like and how much you're storing up inside you like you're sealing off toxic waste containers and dude, you can't keep _doing_ that to yourself.”

Scott let his eyes drop from Stiles' face. It was easier not to look at him when they were having conversations like this, easier not to acknowledge the real, heavy weight of the words between them. He curled his fingers in. “... I _have_ to.”

“Okay, let's entertain _that_ idiot notion for a second.” Stiles said, hunching his shoulders in an attempt to chase Scott's gaze. “Why, exactly do you _have_ to poison yourself with everybody else's problems?”

“Because I have this power, this _strength_ , I'm supposed to use it for _good_. To _help people_.” Scott answered, feeling his fingers coil tighter against the skin of his palms. “Because I can _take_ it.”

Stiles shook his head, eyebrows starting to furrow in an uncharacteristically naked look of worry. “But Scotty, you _can't_.”

The sound that Scott made in response was half insult and half just _pain_ , and Stiles sighed, lifting one hand to rub at his face. “Look—lemme just...okay. You know those MMOs I play, right? The huge online games you aren't really into?”

“Stiles, what does this have to do with--”

“Just stick with me.” Stiles didn't beg indulgence so much as overtly demand it. “So you know I play in these games, and sometimes I go on these big organized group events called Raids, right? And there's at least ten people and you all have to work together to fight some huge bad thing, and if somebody doesn't do their part, everybody dies. There's basically three jobs you can do, you can be somebody who deals a lot of damage, you can be a healer, or you can be a tank. And that's you right now, you know, you're like...you're a tank. You stand in between everybody and all the dangerous stuff, you take all the heavy blows so the rest of us don't have to, because you think you can take it. And maybe you can better than some of the rest of us, but Scott—that doesn't mean you're invincible. You can't take _everything_. It isn't about just standing there and letting the boss punch you in the head, because if you do that, you _will_ get pulverized and then the whole Raid goes down. The whole _pack_ goes down. And, yeah, maybe they're relying on you but they're relying on you to be _smart_ about it.”

Scott had a feeling Stiles' words were meant to sound less like a lecture than they were coming off as, but he couldn't help the bitter taste they left in his mouth or the way that taste made his lips twist faintly. Still, there had to be a point in there somewhere because it was _Stiles_ , so he tried digging, just a little bit. “So what am I supposed to do about it, Stiles? How do I, uh. How do I be a better _tank_?”

Tipping his head up chin-first as he often did when he was trying an unfamiliar stance like _tenderness_ , Stiles let his eyes wander over Scott's face. “You take two tanks, and you let your off-tank take some of the bullshit flying at you. You take little breaks. You _don't_ take _everything_. And you let your healers tend to your wounds.”

Frowning, Scott shook his head again, turning his face down so that Stiles couldn't look at it. “Stiles, this isn't some video game. This is the real world. If we don't do this right, _real people_ die. I can't keep letting that happen. I can't take _breaks_.”

Stiles made a faint growling noise and started to scoot closer, unwilling to let Scott retreat out of the conversation. “Scott, don't you understand? You _have_ to. You want to save people? You've got to accept that you can't save them _all_. It's just—it's numbers, okay? It _is_ like the video game. If you go in there thinking you're going to protect everyone from every ounce of the damage coming at us, you're _going to fall_. And when you fall, then we're going to take _so much more_ damage than we would have if you'd just let us _help_. Once in a while, just let _somebody else_ do it!”

“Stiles, I can't just sit there and watch people die!” Scott's voice rose in distress, pitchy around the edges.

So, as a matter of course, because they'd been tied to each other's wrists since childhood, so did Stiles'. “And _I_ can't just sit there and watch _you_ **kill** yourself!”

The silence grew taut, strained in its fragile middle by all the weight the pair of them had been carrying for months. Scott could feel his jaw locking up, furiously hurt tears pricking at the sides of his eyes. Stiles was already crying, but he was ignoring it like he always did, swiping at his eyes with the knuckle of one irritable thumb as he spoke to fill in the cracks. “Look...Scott. I know...I know you feel like you've got to do something. And I'm not even saying you shouldn't try. You wanna try, we'll try, I'll...it's just...I just wish you'd realize that you're doing your best, that you're trying hard enough, that you're giving enough, you're giving _too much_ , and maybe sometimes that means we didn't save the day but that doesn't make it _your fault_. I know you think I'm fragile, but I'm _not_. I'm not. I can take it. And even if you won't let go with anyone else, it's _me_. It's **me**. When you've gotta break, when you're about to fall apart...Scott, I can take over for a little while. I'll tank for you. I'll do it. You just need to trust me that I _can_ and I _will_ , until you're back on your feet again. **Please**.”

The clenching pain in Scott's chest, like the last dying star, just kept getting _worse_ the more that Stiles talked. “...I...Stiles, they _need_ me. They--”

“Would you shut up for five minutes about what _they_ need and think about what _you_ need?”

He didn't even know. That was the real problem: Scott had _no idea_ what he needed. He'd put the thought aside for so long it was foreign, as alien as a moon landing. He opened his mouth and his voice ground around like it was going to form into words, but it never quite got around to it. Scott could feel himself lifting his eyebrows higher and ever higher, trying to find the right thing to say. There _was_ no right thing to say. There was no answer.

Stiles closed the rest of the distance between them, lifting one hand to press it to the uneven side of Scott's jaw. His fingers curled up into Scott's hair, the heel of his palm against the jawbone, and Stiles used the pressure from his whole hand to make Scott meet his eyes. “Scott. You're a good man. Okay? You're a good man. You're a _good man_. You're not a monster. Even if sometimes you don't save everyone. You're still a good man.”

It was like being punched in the chest. Scott was vaguely aware of making a noise to that end, high-pitched and wounded, and then the world seemed to start to spin, crushing in on him like it used to in the middle of an asthma attack. The tears just _started_ , and once they started Scott couldn't take them back, the pain and the fear pouring out of him in wet tracks and deep, childlike sobs of heartbreak.

Stiles didn't hesitate. He reached out with his second hand and used it to help his first pull Scott close to him. Maneuvering them both until he had Scott's head pressed against his chest, an ear over his heart, Stiles wrapped both arms around the Alpha and started to rock them gently back and forth. He bent his own head just so that he could press a kiss and his quiet, whispered words through Scott's curls as he cried, “It's okay. It's okay. I've got you. We're gonna be all right, Scotty. We're gonna be all right. I've got you. I've always got you.”


End file.
